Originally Posted by Lady Medusa:What about Gary Tonge (a.k.a Antifan)? Someone even Copied his identity. The took his name, personal info and username and created an e-mail account similar to Gary's. Thats Crazy! This happened on deviantart by the way.
I doubt hes the only one that happened to.

I doubt I would be flattered if someone directly copied my work. Personally, I don't think copying the idea is that big of a deal, if made in a different way, that is.
Hwo knows? they might have gotten the same idea whitout even hearing about eatch other.

I'm sorry for all the errors in the post, its late here and I'm simply too tierd to check it.

This has actually happened to me a number of times now. 'I' keep cropping up in galleries all over the place where I've never posted, with weird email addresses and such. The stupidest one so far, however, was a guy who claimed I was a mentor and that we painted the pictures together. He posted them and when someone tried to call him on it, he said that they could never prove I wasn't his mentor and that, in fact, he'd helped me with most of my work (these pieces including a self-portrait among other things). Normal fake-me I can handle, but that was just messed up, heheh.

Hah. Creepy. But thats the internet for you.
It seems the opinions about this are fairly varied. I see some people have nothing against an idea or a concept being imitated, but I personally wouldn't like that, because at my stage, when im still developing my own style, my ideas and concepts are really all that I can call unique about my work, even if they aren't in the grand scheme of things. It's a big world, and someone is bound to have thought of something similar.

If you are busy with outdoing yourself each time you make something, getting a network going, marketing your work there just isnt enough time to worry about people who have to resort to imitation. If you do all the above things correctly then in the end the things you make should be so fantastic that when someone looks at it they think,... stuff it I'll try something easier to copy.

It's only individuals without enough ideas that do this, they are to be pittied not worried about,.... on second thoughts screw that there isnt enough time!

Originally Posted by gordonm:After reading about unprincipled creeps who are committing these slightly psychotic brands of identity theft, I am just wondering , is anyone aware of successful responses to these violations ?

Gord

I knew this guy who copied me and took off with his work and got some commissions. Fine with me, I don't begrudge anyone for their success. Now granted he didn't copy what it was exactly, so it was still a lot of his idea. What I became mad about was that he claimed the whole thing was his idea and that I had nothing to do with it (even though his friend said otherwise), that really ticked me off.

I've been influenced by a lot of people. Though I work hard at creating and saying my own thing. I think thats the most honest way. Any other way (without giving due credit) is simply deception and a lie. It must have a big impact on the work.

I've seen a lot of work that mimics Bruce Timm's animated style (so-called-by-Warner-Brothers) and it just doesn't look or feel the same as Bruce Timm's own work and the work he is directly involved with (such as supervising another artist who is copying his style). Thats the most obvious example that I can think of.

Originally Posted by Kanga:If you are busy with outdoing yourself each time you make something, getting a network going, marketing your work there just isnt enough time to worry about people who have to resort to imitation. If you do all the above things correctly then in the end the things you make should be so fantastic that when someone looks at it they think,... stuff it I'll try something easier to copy.

It's only individuals without enough ideas that do this, they are to be pittied not worried about,.... on second thoughts screw that there isnt enough time!

Just gotta love it. I'm amazed frankly at some things that have been succesfully imitated. Let me tell you somethnig. Apparently there was this famous painter, who among his peers had other famous painters, yadda yadda...This guy copies an artwork signs it with the original painters sign. And lets it circulate. A while later upon auction time, people were gahering arounda painting, of course it was the copy. But the painter wanted to make sure and went closer, the auctionmaster of-course shuffed the painter back. Quite certainly this man knew nothing of art stating he had painted this, such a masterpiece could not have been made by this simple fool. At least the story still survived without an autograph, .

Originally Posted by GOT!:I knew this guy who copied me and took off with his work and got some commissions. Fine with me, I don't begrudge anyone for their success. Now granted he didn't copy what it was exactly, so it was still a lot of his idea. What I became mad about was that he claimed the whole thing was his idea and that I had nothing to do with it (even though his friend said otherwise), that really ticked me off.

I've been influenced by a lot of people. Though I work hard at creating and saying my own thing. I think thats the most honest way. Any other way (without giving due credit) is simply deception and a lie. It must have a big impact on the work.

I've seen a lot of work that mimics Bruce Timm's animated style (so-called-by-Warner-Brothers) and it just doesn't look or feel the same as Bruce Timm's own work and the work he is directly involved with (such as supervising another artist who is copying his style). Thats the most obvious example that I can think of.

I was thinking more of those who blatently misrepresented themselves (sorry for the confusion in my post)

True, that misrepresenting one's self is not a very nice thing to do. And homage is a great flattery. But we are a wonderful "animal collective". And almost everything we do is echoed from some experiance or something we've seen before.

A friend of mine once told me that his painting professor said to him, "Everything in art has been done before."
My friend replied, "Well then, what's the point of painting anything then?"
Professor said: "Because you haven't done it before."

I think about that a lot. There's also a another thing I consider a lot - but I can't remember who said it.
"What of me is mine?"(edit - google says it's Jeanette Winterson entire quote is - ""can i speak my mind or am i dumb inside a borrowed language, captive of bastards thoughts? what of me is mine?" )

Even though I personally am not going to shake the earth with something that's "never been seen or done before", I'm still having fun doing what i'm doing. I'm glad to be in the human collective -

In my observations the truth is everchanging and so are people who are growing constantly, it's like this:

when you edit a movie, the shots derive their meaning from context, edit differently then you get a different movie. You might have two paintings about love, so it's been done, they don't look the same so they aren't. Since the people constantly change. Life will. And in before unseen forms everytime.

Taking this into account means to me that things have common ground instead of having been done before. Copying and uhm...identity disorders and what not... should not fit into this I find, for the obvious reason that there's nothing personal to it.

Oh yes! I agree with you. I hope the "been done before" thing didn't paint too bleak of a picture. Nor would I consciously copy something to claim as my own- but chances are some wonderfully like minded people have already done something very close to any new idea I might suddenly become excited about. That doesn't discourage me, nor should it discourage anyone - it's the personal exploration that's rather exciting.

Also, study should always be encouraged. I went through a silly phase about ten years ago and copied a ton of Francis Bacon paintings just to see what there was to see. My fascination deepened as suddenly -this might sound wierd- his work didn't seem quite so dark anymore. I suddenly saw his brush work as this beautifully dancing searching thing. And that state of mind still serves as a wonderful lesson today-though none of my peices bear any resemblance to F.B.

Um, I guess I don't really have a point to make, exactly. Just a point of view.

Flattery isn't necessarily what I am thinking of when I suggest to a student that they might Study ( which is a euphomism for copy) Eugene Delequax if they are working on the concept of horseness or perhaps Leonardo he did a few really good renderings of very dynamic horseflesh. I then suggest that the student completely forget That work and copy from life if that is what the assignment is. The thing is art is a very Exestensial process. Even if I were to copy anothers work I always bring my own hangups Quirks and idiosyncratic poop along. I can't do Ingres I can only replicate him. In doing so as a learning process is not flattery it is an attempt to acquire certain strengths in technique, observation, manipulation of color, spacial awareness, and on and on. If as an Illustrator I attempt to copy a concept of say mr. Stahlberg and call it my own it is indeed ( lets call it by its real name ) plagerism. Lets face it folks there are people out there who will steal ideas without blinking an eye. There is a whole sub culture out there using devices to lift the art of our Musical brothers and sisters hoping that they will not be cought lifting music off the net. It Gauls me to no limit when I hear one of my students taking music and not feeling anything for the artist. I have a piece of software that looks for plagerized intellectual data as some of my students will write a paper and use a quotation as their own. Imanuel Kant suggested that "We suould act in such a way that the maxiums of our actions (or rules pertaining to our actions) should be used as the basis of a universal Ethic" He illudes here basically to the Golden rule. e.g. if you don't want to be messed over dont be messing over anyone else. My wife is a textile artist and she uses a good many techniques in her tapestries and quilts that she has acquired through the past many years but she makes it a part of the task to either thank the creator of the technique directly or when she has a show she always has an attribution of where she acquired the technique. One of the reasons that I left advertizing and went into teaching was that I just could not stomuch the dishonesty and glibness any longer. This problem will be with us in the future just as it has been with us in the past. It is our task to make a choice when it says copyright it darn well better mean copyright or we will eventually be taking from others and saying to our selves "well gee its just art." If it's my art I ferverently hope your canvas or screen or what ever you are using to do what you are calling art at that moment vaporizes. Ok so I'm getting a bit hot under the collar but then it's my collar isn't it. As to style that is at least a hundred page monograph. Yours in art Tawneycocker PS remember I come from a whole different time dimension somewhere between Queen Victoria and Twiggy so I sound sometimes like an antique. Twiggy was, well, oh never mind.

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